Session Five
Setting out in early afternoon after their meeting with the Duke of the Eastern Marches, the party, now a fully chartered adventuring company under the name of the Worthy Blades, crossed the fortified Kingsbridge across the Sword River into the hilly uplands of northern Cormyr. Following the magically created High Road, or King's High Road, to the west, they crossed through the rolling hills and backwater farms and trading stops of the Northern Marches, keeping the verdant expanse of the King's Forest to the south and the ever looming Stone Cliffs to the north.
Near twilight, after traveling over a dozen miles, the party discovered a cross way heading to the northwest marked with a signpost signifying Dawnsrest. Along that road, beyond several rolling rises, the keen eyes of the party spotted a swirling mass of dipping march crows. Moving swiftly and expecting trouble, the suspicions of the party were soon confirmed. The Worthy Blades came upon the scene of a monstrous attack and robbery. A mixed caravan of halflings and humans was being held in thrall by the enchanted singing of a dark figure on a rocky rise while a small group of hooded figures robbed their goods.
Shouting a cry of battle, the party charged into the engagement, stubbornly resisting the seductive enchantment of the singing creature. A brutal engagement followed, testing the limits of the new found group against the murderous crows and the hooded figures that the group soon identified as "kenku", black feathered flightless bird men with a fell reputation. After a protracted battle, all of the bird creatures but one was slain and both the cloud of crows and the winged enchantress, later identified as a harpy, were driven off to the north, towards the Stone Cliffs.
After tending to their wounds, the party saw to the needs of the beleaguered caravan, whose owner, Barrdo Harrfoot identified it as the Family Harrfoot Caravan Extraordinary. Taking stock of the situation, the grateful caravaneer beseeched the party to escort him and his family the rest of the way to Dawnsrest, to which they agreed.
A short distance down the road, the group came upon the evening shrouded Dawnsrest Abbey, a fortified monastery devoted to Lathander, the Lord of Morning. The monks greeted Harrfoot as a friend, and extended that welcome to the party as the caravan's saviors. They were met at the door by the prior of the monastery, Dawnlord Harod Blaendryn, and treated as honored guests at the table of the monk's evening feast. Before dining, the party secured their horses and the caravan in the courtyard of the keep, and confined their remaining kenku prisoner in the old wine cellar of the main building.
When questioned, Prior Blaendryn explained some of the history of the monks of Dawnsrest and the harpies. Five years ago, he and his parish had reclaimed the old keep in which the monastery resides from a covey of murderous harpies led by a queen of sorts, known by the Lathanderites as the "Blood Queen". Though they killed several of her "sisters", the Blood Queen and her closest kin escaped the attack, though they had remained quiet for years. Only in the last year had they become troublesome again. Huge flights of the vicious march crows had been spotted in the northwest, and many of the abbey's outlying vineyards and fields have suffered nearly irreparable damage for the coming harvest. The attack on the Harrfoot caravan was, to the Prior, the final straw. The Worthy Blades bravely volunteered to track down the harpy that launched the raid on the caravan, hatching a cunning plan to let the kenku prisoner escape in the hopes that he will lead a tracking Mariam directly back to the harpy's nest.
The party's dinner was interrupted by the arrival of one of the master Harrfoot's kin, giving a cryptic but urgent request for assistance. Something was going into labor in the courtyard, which the Blades soon discovered to be a very pregnant but crippled pegasus. With the able assistance of Mariam and Briar Rose, the beautiful animal gave birth to a healthy female foal, and both the women and the elven men spent the evening in the stables watching over the pair. Rohan (with a brief, secret ritual undertaken), and John (who it was found was swiftly adapting to the veneration of the Morninglord) both spent the night in the cells of the monks.
Kythorn 24th, The Year of the Crown, 1351 DRIn the morning, it was swiftly discerned that the kenku prisoner had indeed made good his escape in the dead of night, and, with a brief blessing by the prior of Dawnsrest (which manifested as a rosy glow settling on the members of the Blades, and conferring upon them an extended version of the bless spell), the party made their way to the trail of their quarry, to follow him on foot, hopefully back to the lair of his mistress.
